


Postscripta

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (of sorts), (there's a lot of it about), Arthur Conan Doyle Canon References, Background Case, Banter, Black Character(s), Book of Common Prayer, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Church of England, Classical Music, Coffee, Cooking, Dialogue Heavy, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Families of Choice, Feelings, Female Friendship, Fluff, Food, For Science!, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Holding Hands, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream, Joan deserves her own version of that tag but here we are, John is a Very Good Doctor, Light Angst, Literary References & Allusions, Love, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Movie Night, Music, Operas, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Female Character, POV Joan Watson (Elementary), POV Marcus, POV Multiple, POV Sherlock Holmes, Platonic Life Partners, Popcorn, Queerplatonic Relationships, Religion, Sherlock Being Considerate, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Being an Idiot, Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson (Elementary) Friendship, Sherlock Whump, Some Humor, Stress Baking, Tea, Texting, because I love her, did i mention there's a lot of tea?, mostly Joan-centric, this should probably also be tagged for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-07 01:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 15,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14070132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: So far, the theme of season 5 seems to be that these idiots, whom I love, can't take care of themselves. So I've added hypothesized scenes where they do just that. Self-contained chapters are titled for their corresponding episodes. Tags will be updated as the work progresses. Content warnings will be appended to relevant chapters.Like other works I write for Holmes and Watson, this one can be read as shipping-friendly but is not shipping-explicit. That said, I'm new to writing for Elementary, so would welcome suggestions for how best to tag this take on their passionate, category-defying relationship so that those who want to find it can.





	1. Folie à Deux

“You were run over,” says Joan, “by a car.”

“As I have repeatedly reminded you, Watson, I — ”

“Went over the bonnet. I know.”

“If you continue to experience these inexplicable lapses in memory, I recommend herbal supplements. Our stock currently includes — ”

“Take off your shirt.”

“What?”

“Take off your shirt. I’m a qualified doctor and I’m going to examine you.”

He scowls at her, but he obeys — or begins to. He manages the placket, at least, more quickly than she had expected. “Need I remind you,” says Sherlock, “of the carnage perpetrated by the bombers we have now successfully apprehended?” He is nearly shouting; there are tears standing in his eyes. His shirt is half-off one shoulder.

“No,” says Joan quietly, and moves to stand behind him. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you need help getting out of your shirt.” He exhales sharply, shifting his weight rapidly between his feet. “There we go,” says Joan. The visual inspection comes first. “Not as bad as I expected, actually.”

“Thank you, Watson. Now — ”

“Don’t even think about it,” says Joan, handing him his shirt. She runs her hands slowly from shoulder to fingertips, first on the right side, then on the left. He is tense, but he doesn’t flinch — no apparent breakages. She runs her thumb over the scar of his childhood pride, feels his rapid pulse. “Now your ribs,” says Joan. She can feel his eyes on her. His breathing is not quite even, but at least it isn’t shallow… until suddenly it is a hiss between his teeth.

“Yeah,” says Joan, “I think that one might be cracked.” After another minute, she adds: “Nothing appears to be actually broken. I take it you categorically refuse to go to the hospital?”

“I do.”

She shakes her head at him. “I don’t know why I put up with this.”

“Because you are a qualified doctor and you know this way is more efficient.” 

“Or maybe I just feel sorry for any hospital staff forced to deal with you.” She is rummaging in the cupboard next to the refrigerator. 

He sighs. “A viable theory. What are you doing, Watson?”

She brandishes her supplies. “Lineament first, then bandages. It’ll be easiest if you sit backwards on one of the kitchen chairs.” He stalks stiffly over to one; she suspects him of making an effort not to groan as he sits down.

She is relieved that he hasn’t acquired new scars without her noticing. Warming her compound between her hands, she allows herself to admire the stitching on the bullet wound in his shoulder. Neat work under adverse circumstances, if she says so herself. Her housemate shivers. 

“Don’t rush me,” says Joan, not quite severely, as she puts her hands on his back. “This should help with inflammation and swelling. Breathe normally.” She works firmly and methodically over shoulders and arms; he makes no articulate sound. Then she turns to the damaged ribs.

“Watson…” he says, after several minutes.

“Unless you’re about to faint, shut up and hold still. You’re going to need to ice your knee later, by the way; don’t think I didn’t notice. There.” She closes the bandage neatly, runs an approving hand over her work.

“Watson,” he says again, almost plaintively.

“Yeah,” she says, “you’re going to hurt. You’re also very lucky.”

“In many things, Watson,” says her partner softly. “In many things.”


	2. Worth Many Cities

She enters the brownstone to the sounds of Bach. “Hello?” Joan Watson knows her housemate well enough to proceed with caution in the presence of the unexpected. She hooks her yoga mat over the newel post and goes to investigate. She finds Sherlock on the rug he has forbidden her to call a sex blanket. Fortunately, he is both alone and fully clothed. She takes in his appearance, sniffs the air.

“Is that my face mask?”

“It is.”

“You know that stuff’s expensive, right?”

“It’s mud, Watson.”

“Expensive mud. Not the kind that comes up in your monograph on soil types.”

“Forgive me, Watson.” He still has not opened his eyes. “I needed to relax.”

The follow-up question is obvious: “Where’s Fiona?” 

“Revising other people’s code, apparently — preparing for the launch of an app.”

“You’re lucky she can’t process the disdain in your voice when you say _app_.” Joan frowns down at her partner; she’s still convinced that there’s some crucial data point she’s missing. He hasn’t risen to her needling, hasn’t even bothered to look elaborately unconcerned. And he’s lying on the sex blanket wearing her best face mask.

“You know what,” says Joan, “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

***

The difficulty is, she reflects, that almost nothing counts as out of the ordinary for Sherlock Holmes. He has survived more than she cares to think about. Not only does he accept danger as a fact of existence, he courts it. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Having showered and changed into her pajamas, Joan returns downstairs, prepared to find out whatever the truth may be. 

She deposits her armload of pillows unceremoniously. He barely flinches. She sighs, and settles in next to him, reaching across him for the — _her_ — jar of mineral-rich mud. At length she lies back, staring at the ceiling. 

“So,” says Joan. “You want to tell me what has you so upset that you’re lying on the floor in a dimly-lit room, listening to Bach’s cello suites and wearing my face mask?” The breath he takes is ragged. Thanks to the fire he has lit, the room is more than usually warm; she can still feel his trembling across the space between them.

“I was abducted by gangsters.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Gangsters notorious for their unusual brutality,” he adds. Joan waits. “I have beheld the _disjecta membra_ of one of their targets.”

“Mmm.” Joan rolls her shoulders and folds her hands over her midriff. The cellist enters the allemande. “I’m not going to give up, you know.” His stillness transforms into attention. 

“Come on, Sherlock. You know I know you too well to buy that.” She lays out her process of deduction slowly, calmly, as though she were demonstrating her skill for him. “The night you got home from being abducted, _I_ was more upset than you were. Not only were you not upset, you took on a corporate criminal — who does cleaner murders, admittedly, but still murders — for good measure. No one’s come to the house since I left this afternoon. And I’ve been checking the headlines and there’s nothing. So tell me: what am I missing?”

He sighs. The cellist begins the prelude to the fourth suite. “Well deduced, Watson.” He is silent for long enough that she finds herself drifting towards the edge of consciousness. “They threatened you,” says Sherlock at last, “using a — an insulting diminutive.”

She raises herself on her elbows. “An insulting diminutive?”

“Mm.” His fingers beat an uneasy rhythm against his thigh. “I reviewed… several possible scenarios. Even presuming that I were to be abducted first, even presuming that I could get a message to you, there was no way of guaranteeing that you could evade them. And they — their intentions were clearly to take us both. Together. It would have made,” he says, and his voice is tight, “for a more refined torture.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t have let it get that far,” she says firmly; the ridiculous thing is that she believes it. “You would have warned me. You _did_ warn me.” She angles her shoulder to touch his, briefly. “And you got me a safe house, remember?”

“Still — ”

“Hey.” She interrupts him, putting her hand over his wrist. “Hey. I chose this, remember? This work we do, together; it’s ours. It’s ours: bringing down arrogant bastards who save their fucking restraining orders and restoring half-legendary artifacts and getting threats from gangsters. It’s all ours, okay?”

He inhales deeply, and holds the breath for several seconds before letting it out. “If you,” he begins, and stops. “If anything…”

“Stop it,” says Joan. “It wouldn’t. It won’t. Get your smart girlfriend to put emergency signals on our phones, if it’ll make you feel better. Bat-signal to the NYPD when we’re endangered by murderous thugs.” She notices too late that she did not say _if._ “I bet she could make an app for that.” The soft, shaken sound he makes could almost pass for laughter.

“Rostropovich?” she asks, after a few minutes of silence.

“Mm. ’95 recording.”

“Nice,” says Joan. “You know,” she adds, “we should do spa nights more often.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a selection from the landmark recording Sherlock has chosen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgkGlqAmSUo


	3. Render, and then Seize Her

His phone dings as he exits the subway. _Ice cream?_

He frowns at the screen. _Flvr?_ There is a worrisomely long pause, and then:

 _Whatever._ He shoves his phone back into his pocket, and quickens his pace.

***

“Watson?”

“Here!” It is not surprising to find her in her favored shrug, listlessly examining the DVD collection. She has not wept; and her last few liaisons have been, to his knowledge, amicably casual… She looks up.

“Did you buy out the bodega?”

“I went to the supermarket.” He drops into a sitting position next to her, opening the bags for her examination. “Wasn’t sure what you wanted.”

Her wry laughter is that reserved for when he’s been, in her view, inoffensively absurd. It’s a start. “Um… chocolate cherry would be great. Thanks. Good luck fitting all that into the freezer.” 

“I have calculated the cubic space to a nicety, Watson.”

“Of course you have.”

When he returns with a spoon (and a cup of tea for himself), she is still seated on the floor. “What’s a good movie for making the best of a bad situation?”

“ _Casablanca_ ,” he says promptly.

“You always say _Casablanca_.”

“Fine; _Now, Voyager_ then.”

“Sounds good.” She comes to join him on the couch. He watches her, rather than Bette Davis.

“Why do people make such a mess of their lives?” she asks, as Charlotte pours out her heart to Dr. Jaquith. 

He hums thoughtfully. Watson returns the spoon to her mouth. “You can hardly consider me to be an expert, Watson.” He steals a sidelong glance at her. “Unless, of course, you are alluding to my personal experience in such matters.”

“No, I didn’t mean…” She trails off. She is close to weeping now. “It’s just — that couple, betraying each other and themselves. They must have started out with such hope, and then… And then those people at the nudist colony, or whatever it is. Not all of them, of course, but so many of them seemed to be running away. But you can’t shed your flaws like a suit of clothes. We have to live with each other, somehow. Not you and me, I mean — ” she gestures with the spoon — “all of us.”

“Yes.”

For some time they watch in silence. “Propinquity and propriety,” she says then, parroting one of the characters on screen. “And that’s _still_ true, though the definitions of propriety may have changed. Dating, moving in, marriage… there’s a _timeline._ And then it all falls apart and we pick up the pieces. Even if we’re investigating something quite different, half the time. Don’t you find it depressing?”

“My views on the marital state, Watson, are well-known, particularly to you.” She sighs. Paul Henried lights a single cigarette, saying _I wish I understood you._ “I believe I have convinced Captain Gregson and his paramour to elope.”

“What?” He wipes the flung drop of ice cream from his orbital bone, sticks his finger in his mouth. “That’s amazing. But isn’t it — aren’t you — ”

“They need each other, Watson,” he says simply. “They need each other, and they want each other. It seemed worse than foolish to let an abstract conviction about societal institutions get in the way of that.”

She smiles, slow and genuine. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.” She sighs as she leans back against the couch, and he feels some of the tension leave his own body. She takes another bite of ice cream. “You know, this sexless antagonism thing is pretty nice too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure why I headcanon Sherlock as being enthusiastic and knowledgeable about Old Hollywood, except for his quotation during their first meeting.


	4. Henny Penny, the Sky is Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sillier and less emotionally substantial than some of the other chapters, but it picks up on a moment that made me chuckle. The POV is omniscient.

“Have you never seen _Die Hard_?”

“What?”

“Don’t think I didn’t catch you short-circuiting on Bruce Willis back there. How have you never seen _Die Hard?_ ”

“Watson, you speak in riddles.”

“I can’t believe I’ve been your housemate for five years and however-long-it’s-been and we haven’t…”

“Cumulatively, four months, two weeks…”

“No,” says Joan, “do not give me the days and the hours; that would be creepy. The point is, we’re fixing this.”

***

The evening after their receipt of the merit citation, the doorbell of the brownstone rings.

Joan shouts from the kitchen: “I’m doing the popcorn.”

He sighs gustily, but he rises from his chair, his fingers tapping out Morse code.

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen _Die Hard._ ”

“Good evening to you too, Marcus.”

“Joan tells me we’re having a double feature.”

“So it would seem. I presumed you’d be…” he waves a hand… “celebrating.”

Marcus laughs. “Oh, we have been. But I’d just as soon not be nursing a hangover tomorrow morning.” 

“Mm. Very sensible. Real amber ale?”

The detective quirks an eyebrow at him. “You realize that if I let it slip that you’re a human breathalyzer, the entire precinct will drag you out at 2 a.m. on a Saturday in order to take bets on you versus our drunks?”

“Are you positing me as some sort of Henry Higgins of the holding cells?”

“Uh… yeah, let’s go with that.”

Sherlock shudders. “Horrible notion.”

“That’s what I thought. I accept bribery from friends.”

He gestures towards the kitchen. “Watson’s making popcorn.”

“Doing your dirty work for you?”

“Ha!” says Joan, emerging with a bowl in each hand. “If he claims that, Marcus, he’s lying. Hi, by the way. All dirty, disagreeable, and dangerous jobs are shared equally by the partners of the firm.”

“I hope you have a brochure that says exactly that.”

“We’ll have to make one,” says Joan cheerfully. “Now that the 11th is famous, criminals will go elsewhere and we’ll be forced to recruit more private clients.”

“Maybe with a course of remedial film studies on the side.”

“Absolutely,” says Joan, handing Sherlock their bowl of popcorn as she turns her attentions to the DVD player. 

“I resent the dual implication, Watson, that you and I have been negligent in such matters. At your instigation, we have undertaken what I would consider to be a thorough study of ‘70s police dramas and political thrillers, action films of the ‘90s and what I understand is known as neo-noir, though I maintain that the stylistic disjuncture is…”

“And you haven’t seen _Die Hard_?” Marcus’ voice rises as it always does when he is incredulous. 

“I assumed he had!” protests Joan, inserting herself between them on the couch. “Now hush. We’re doing this one and _…With a Vengeance._ ”

“Yippee-ki-yay,” says Marcus, and Sherlock’s expression of horrified confusion sends Joan into a fit of laughter that lasts through the opening credits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True confession: the author of this fic has never seen the _Die Hard_ films properly start-to-finish either. I am an orphan of a bankrupt culture, obviously. Sherlock and Joan's movie-watching history is hypothesized based on his remark about movies she likes with show-off bomb-makers.


	5. To Catch a Predator Predator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: this picks up at the end of the episode, prolonging that conversation; there's discussion of everyday sexual harassment as well as the sexual assault in the case. I write from the perspective of an assault survivor so... there's that, but everyone's triggers are different, so skip if you don't want to be reminded that the world can be scary and awful.

“He’ll be spending the rest of his life in an Indonesian prison. I typically don’t like such measures, but — there’s ample evidence that FitzHugh is a threat to young women wherever he resides.” She takes in the tic in the vein at his temple, the tightness of his jaw, the rapid fidgeting of finger and thumb. “If you feel I’m acting rashly…”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t say anything.” She cannot recall ever having seen him this incandescently angry.

“Once or twice in my career, Watson…” He stops. “Once or twice in my career, I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he — or she, of course, in this case — had done by the crime.”

“And you feel that way now?” She finishes peeling her apple, and begins to slice it.

He makes a non-committal noise, shakes his head rapidly, as if trying to clear it, or to shake off an invisible gadfly. He scrubs his hands over his face. “Too many layers, Watson.”

“Layers?”

“Of crime. Of deception. She was right.”

She’s sure she’s read somewhere that apples are good for cognitive processing; whether it was in medical school or her detective training she isn’t sure. Either way, she’s still lost. “Who was right?”

“Miss Parsons. About Novak.” His right heel is drumming a noiseless tattoo just above the floor. “Convinced that he had the right to pursue that man as he saw fit. Convinced that it was his decision to make. Convinced that he knew how justice should be served.” Suddenly, he stills. “She was right; he did see her as a victim.”

Joan sighs, and puts her elbows on the table. Her partner glares dourly at the glowing screen of his laptop, as if willing his Balinese colleague to email with the news that a serial predator has been successfully framed and carted off.

“Well,” she says, “you’ve made sure that FitzHugh won’t hurt anyone else.”

“By means of a not-dissimilar process of arrogating the execution of justice to myself, as you are thinking but kindly do not observe.”

“You’re not taking anything out of the survivors’ hands. You’re acting because no one else can.” He shifts his glare to her. “When did you last eat? Have some apple.”

“Watson, do not — ”

“I’m not trying to distract you; I’m just trying to feed you.”

His eyes do not leave her face, but one long-fingered hand snakes out and takes a wedge of apple, pincer-like. He is still simmering with rage.

“I was an angry feminist for a while,” says Joan. His chewing slows as he musters her. “Late college, early med school… I went on all the marches, read the op-ed columns, volunteered for movements and campaigns, donated, the whole bit.”

“And?”

She sighs. “It was exhausting. I know there are some people who can do it — who can carry it — and just keep going. And I’m grateful for that. But that’s not me.”

“You still donate: I’ve seen your mail.”

Trust him to notice. “Yeah, I do. And I live with the existence of these men every day.” He blinks rapidly. “It’s a fact of life,” she says bluntly, “living with not knowing when a cat-call is going to turn into someone throwing something, or following you, or trying to grab… Did you know I sometimes reroute around the guy selling insurance outside the DMV?” She’s not surprised by his expression of shock; she hopes the shock will be a salutary one.

“Only sometimes,” he says, his voice carefully neutral.

“Yeah,” she says, “the hotdog vendor has my back. Of course,” she adds, “all the self-defense training comes in handy too.”

“Good,” he says, “good.”

“Anger can be a fire,” she says, “or it can be corrosive. You know this.”

He exhales, a long, shaken breath. He takes another piece of apple. “Yes,” he says at last. 

She smiles at him. “Singlestick practice? First one to three hits buys takeout.”

He jumps to his feet. “Done.” At the foot of the stairs he turns back. “I had rather play tricks with the law,” he says, “than with my own conscience.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it's obvious that I'm not suggesting that there's only one good way to be a feminist or act in feminist ways (cf. bell hooks.) I just thought this conversation needed to happen, and took the liberty of having Joan's own experiences of activism and anger mirror my own. 
> 
> Also, shoutout to the awesome hot dog vendor _cum_ anti-harassment activist of the Bronx who made my commute much easier for the years I lived near his block.
> 
> Sherlock's remarks about doing harm by discovering criminals and taking liberties with the law are taken from one of my favorite canon stories, ABBE:  http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/178/the-return-of-sherlock-holmes/3238/chapter-xii-the-adventure-of-the-abbey-grange/


	6. Ill Tidings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joan Watson deserves nice things, including a mid-week glass of wine with the neighbor once in a while. And after "Ill Tidings," she definitely deserves a chance to decompress.

“Hey, Joan,” says her neighbor. “This is fun.”

“Hey.” Joan forces a smile as she embraces Christine, feels guilty for having to force it. “I’m glad you could come out.”

“I’m always telling myself I should do things like this more often… Let me buy you your drink?”

“Don’t be silly; you brought us those lovely seashells from your cruise — Sherlock loves them.” She does not say _sniffing and licking them in order to construct histories of their provenance, handling, and transport._ They need all the reserves of neighborly goodwill they can get.

“Pinot noir,” says Joan, handing her credit card firmly across the counter.

“Ooh,” says Christine. “Chardonnay, please. Are we celebrating something?”

Joan chuckles ruefully. “I was going to get coffee, but…”

“Bad day?”

Joan shakes her head. “Rough week, really. I just needed to get out of the house.”

Christine coos sympathetically. “I don’t think I could work from home; it would be so stressful to have everything there all the time.”

 _You have no idea._ “I don’t mind, most of the time,” says Joan truthfully. “But I draw the line at venomous snakes.”

“Not really!” Christine is clearly delighted by the exoticism of the tidbit, as well as vicariously horrified. “Cheers.”

“Cheers. I’m afraid so. Getting the ACC to deal with them is… a process. And I shouldn’t say ‘they’; there was only one.”

“But it’s safely gone now…”

“Oh, yes!” Joan shakes herself slightly. “Yes, absolutely, and it was never on the loose in the neighborhood; we just couldn’t get anyone to take it at first.”

“Eurgh.” 

“Yeah. Avoiding the thing while my partner literally _googled_ how not to antagonize one is not an experience I’d care to repeat.”

“I will never complain about my clients again.”

“I hope that’s a lie,” Joan says, “because it would be a positive relief to hear about someone else’s problems for a change.” 

Christine laughs. “I promise to only discuss the entertainingly horrible ones. The outraged ‘no, no pornography was purchased using this account’ stories are always fun.”

“I’ll drink to that,” says Joan.


	7. Bang Bang Shoot Chute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The "Cardboard Box" intro gets a remix.

“It does seem a most preposterous way of settling a dispute.” 

“Mm,” says Joan Watson, and looks up from her laptop exactly three seconds later. “You know it’s unnerving when you do that, right?”

He shoots her a sidelong glance. “I should be sorry if our five years of cohabitation had entirely taken away my power to surprise you.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. We’ve been working a case about war profiteering and economic imperialism. I’m on the website of a veterans’ charity… and I’ve stopped scrolling.”

“And you’ve stopped scrolling. Ergo, you have become preoccupied by meditations on what is called the human cost of war. As if all its costs were not human costs.”

“Yeah.” She sighs. “You want me to put the donation in both our names?”

“If you would be so good, Watson.”

“I’ll add it to the accounts. And that _is_ pretty impressive, by the way.”

He waves a dismissive hand. “You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man — and woman, of course — as the means by which to express emotion, and yours are faithful servants.”

Her mouth quirks. “Bully for me, I guess,” says Joan Watson. She does not ask him what he thinks that theory implies about his own countenance: naturally mobile, and yet so often set; habitually opaque, yet to her transparent in shifts so small as to be imperceptible, as well as in moments of sudden and unexpected vulnerability. 

“Now,” says her partner, “you have turned your attention away from your former task entirely.”

“Uh, yeah.” Joan shuts her laptop and gets to her feet. “Do you want tea if I put the kettle on?”


	8. How the Sausage is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A double drabble with a mention of cannibalism.

Joan Watson sits at the kitchen table, wishing she didn’t have to think about getting herself dinner. “Have you ever considered going vegetarian?”

“No.”

“I think I am.”

“Don’t be absurd, Watson.” He does not turn from preparing his omelette. “The mood will pass. We have the luxury of ensuring that all the meat we consume is ethically sourced.”

“And we’ve just worked a case involving artisanal _people sausages_!”

“During the aftermath of the Second World War…”

“I don’t think I want to hear this story.”

“…much sausage in Germany was colloquially known as Lohengrin wurst.” 

She frowns, puzzled. “And?”

He grins wickedly at her. “You’re the opera buff, Watson.”

“I give up.”

He turns back to the stove, but hums — with surprising accuracy of pitch and tempo — a familiar leitmotif. 

“ _Nie sollst du mich befragen_ … yeah, Elsa’s not supposed to ask him — oh!”

“Exactly, Watson. ‘Never must you ask, nor concern yourself with knowing…’ ”

“That is disgusting.”

“A delightful example of German humor, I’ve always thought.” She merely shudders; he slides a a plate with half a vegetable omelette in front of her. “Cheer up, Watson,” says her partner. “Our religious friends left us dessert.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The factoid about postwar sausage is, I'm afraid, entirely true. The leitmotiv in question can be seen/heard in context here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b332W3GmWw8.


	9. It Serves You Right to Suffer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humor is prized over plausibility; some themes of the episode are picked up while its angst is mostly ignored.

Being allowed to wake on her own is a rare luxury, and Joan relishes it. The sun is high, their latest case is solved, and she can settle into making her coffee in peace.

Her sense of well-being lasts until she reaches the landing.

“Sherlock!” It is a rather breathless yelp.

“Congratulate me, Watson.”

“I’m not congratulating you on anything.”

“I have solved the mystery of the Amateur Mendicant Society.”

Joan reaches the bottom of the stairs, quickly confirms that they are alone and that the house is secure. “How did you even get back here?”

“Taxi.”

“And the driver didn’t insist on taking you to the _hospital_?”

“This is New York, Watson.” When she still glares down at him, he adds: “It was dark.”

With a sigh, she drops to her haunches and begins to appraise the damage. “Well,” she says, “I’m glad you didn’t die in a crash caused by your blind taxi driver. That would have been tragic.”

“Hm.” Astonishingly, it is a noise of amusement. “It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian, Watson. Well,” he amends, “two slogging ruffians. Still, the outcome was never in doubt.” She’d be less worried if he weren’t so uncharacteristically still. There are no obvious breakages, however, and he is irritatingly coherent, which speaks well for the probable condition of his skull. And very little of the blood appears to be actually his, unless…

“Shit,” says Joan, peeling back his dark tweed. 

Sherlock opens the eye that isn’t swollen shut. “It was a very short blade, Watson.”

“ _It was a very…!_ Someday,” says Joan, “I am going to give you a lecture — a proper lecture, a scientific lecture, the kind you might actually remember — about your vital organs, and how vulnerable they are.” She sighs. “Today is not that day. I hope, by the way, that there’s an answer to the question of why you’re lying in our hallway that isn’t ‘position determined to be the most efficient way of scaring one’s housemate half to death.’ ”

“I had no intention of… stairs…” This lapidary explanation is hardly reassuring; the gaps are all too easy to fill in. “My apologies, Watson.” It is that murmured phrase, entirely without guile, that decides her. As gently and as swiftly as possible, she frees his shirt from his waistband and undoes the placket; to her relief, as well as to her astonishment, his sides are not bruised. He shouldn’t be in danger from internal bleeding, as long as…

“Did you fall? Get thrown against a wall? Take a blow from a blunt instrument anywhere I can’t currently see?”

“No, no, and no.” The answer is instantaneous. “What do you take me for, Watson?”

She bites her tongue; there are far too many potential answers to that rhetorical question. “All right,” she says, “I’ll patch you up. But I’m not ruling out an ambulance. And you should know that I’ll be monitoring you for concussion.” She burns off some of her adrenaline running for her medical kit. She is still simmering when she comes back, but she has also solved the mystery of the very short blade. 

“You failed to mention,” says Joan, “that one of your slogging ruffians was armed with a box cutter.” His silence could be due either to exhaustion or mulishness; she suspects the latter. “All right,” she says, “tell me about the Amateur Mendicant Society.”

“You will recall,” he responds promptly, “that the year ’87 produced a series of cases of greater or less interest — the Paradol Chamber and the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons, of course, practically solved themselves, what with the upheavals attendant upon _glasnost_ — but the Amateur Mendicant Society eluded me.”

“Being far more complex than cases of international intrigue involving the Soviets.”

“Exactly. Or rather, far more simple, and thus more difficult to — ow.”

“Serves you right,” says Joan grimly. “You were saying?”

“I realized,” said Sherlock, “that they would need alibis in their own persons — not while masquerading as mendicants, of course…”

“Of course not.”

“…but if I could reconstruct a network of unconnected alibis, as it were, I might yet find the concealed point of convergence. And I did, thanks in part to the vague reverence of family-run businesses for the relics of their ancestors’ bookkeeping.”

“I’m happy for you.”

She knows to interpret the twitch of his mouth as a smile. “The idea occurred to me,” he observes, “in the course of my interrogation of several gang members…. Enlighten me, Watson: what exactly _is_ curb-stomping?”

She becomes motionless, arrested in the act of putting her things away. She tries not to imagine that narrow, saturnine face split irrevocably open, patched together on the slab of his chess partner. “Sometimes,” says Joan Watson, when the urge to shake him has passed, “I almost — _almost_ — understand why you don’t tell me things. That is not an endorsement; it is an observation.”

“Understood.”

“It had better be.” Joan sits back on her heels. Even cleaned up, he doesn’t look good. She takes a deep breath. “We are going to get you onto the couch. And then,” she says, enunciating clearly, “I am going to make myself coffee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon references are to FIVE and SOLI.


	10. Pick Your Poison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's first line is a Latin maxim, often translated as "The dose makes the poison."
> 
> I wanted to follow up (at least a little) on the fact that, in "Lesser Evils," Watson has let her license lapse, convinced that she can't -- and won't -- practice medicine, and by this episode, she's had it renewed. I love her.

“Sola dosis facit venenum.”

Joan finishes picking the Centurion padlock before responding. “You know Paracelsus is out of vogue with the medical establishment these days, right?”

“Not wrong, though.”

She cannot suppress her smile. “No,” she agrees, “he wasn’t wrong.”

“And,” says Sherlock, “he believed alchemists should redirect their efforts from transmutation of lead to devising medicines. A man with a keen and unusual mind.”

“That’s one way of putting it. Note the operative principle, there, that alchemists have super-awesome alchemist powers…”

“You really should not dismiss out of hand such a rich chapter in the history of science, Watson,” avers her partner. “Take John Dee, for instance…”

“Can we take John Dee some other time? After we’ve ordered Thai, for instance?” He holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

***

“You know,” she says, ladling out the Tom Ka Gai, “I really appreciated what you did in that meeting with Agent Ritter.”

“What?” He is almost comically nonplussed.

“Well.” She licks a drop of soup from her thumb. “It’s a long story — letting my medical license lapse, reinstating it — and I don’t always feel like telling it. Certainly not to that asshole.”

“Mm.”

“Anyway,” she continues, determined to finish this before he redirects the conversation to seventeenth-century astrologers, “it means a lot. For you to affirm my expertise.”

He blinks at her. “Of course. You are a good doctor, Watson. You always have been.” He frowns, returns his attention to his soup. “I have always known it.”

She cannot resist teasing him. “Sherlock,” says Joan, in mock-astonishment, “are you trying to say that you’re proud of me?”

He puts his spoon down. “Don’t be absurd, Watson,” he says sharply. “I would never say anything so saccharine.”

She grins. “Yeah,” she says, “of course you wouldn’t.”


	11. Be My Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for melodrama and for verb mood weirdness, both in Sherlock's hypothetical scenarios. Also, this chapter sees a brief interruption in hurt/comfort sequences while he seethes with angst about his Watson.

The day is pale and cold, and he feels raw, exposed to it. The police station’s execrable coffee suffices as fuel, but it is hardly inspiriting. And the house is the drab house of a man who was wounded in someone else’s war, a disabled man whose neighbors have not put out his trash for him. He hunches his shoulders against the chill. He calls Watson. It goes straight to voicemail. If he is not to have the pleasure of hearing her voice, he can at least leave her with a baseball analogy.

And then the man comes out of the house at a fugitive’s swift, loping run. Marcus must have allowed himself to be seen. “Mr. Langston.” It is important that he knows himself to be identified, not safely anonymous.He readies himself for movement, pitches his voice to carry to his allies. It may not be enough. “Put the gun down. Put the gun down; the police are here.” He has not had time to hang up the phone, and it is this awareness that beats in his brain. 

By the time the situation has been resolved, he is sick with the knowledge that Langston is not the man they seek. He has also run through several possible scenarios.

***

Scenario 1: Langston shoots, and misses. The odds will still be stacked against him. He will have to avoid the second shot while either vaulting the railing and hoping the man is too stupid to run straight for the road, or rounding the corner of the ramp and giving Langston more time to ready the gun. If the former (1a), he has a decent chance of landing a kick — if, that is, he calculates the man’s rate of speed correctly, and if the gun is not immediately leveled, and fired. The outcome remains horrendously unpredictable. If the latter (1b), he is certain of successfully stopping their fugitive, whether directly or through delay. He is also quite certain of getting shot at close range. Statistics show that high levels of adrenaline are inimical to the accurate use of firearms. Still. Whether the shot grazes his flesh, or shatters a bone, or punctures an organ, or kills him outright, his phone will record it all. 

Scenario 2: Langston shoots and does not miss. The element of surprise may then be on his side: criminals so rarely expect to be pursued by someone they have just wounded. It’s a narrowness of imagination that has often worked in his favor. Ideally, he could manage to tackle the man by the knees, or the ankles, destroying his equilibrium and sending the gun flying. Presuming the success of such a maneuver (2a), Marcus will ensure the man’s capture. But that still leaves his central problem unresolved. If his phone shatters in the struggle, it becomes well-nigh unresolvable, unless he picks Marcus’ pocket (not impossible) and uses the detective’s phone to call her, to update her as soon as possible on the _status quo_. Whichever instrument he uses… She may well find herself still occupied, in which case the recording of the shot and the struggle will be waiting to ambush her. A second message might mitigate, but could not undo the damage. If she is free, and if she has not yet checked her phone — these damned conditionals! -- all may yet be well. "We have apprehended the fugitive, Watson; disregard your voicemail. How runs the world with you?" Of course, there is also the possibility (2b) that Langston will succeed in shooting him again, or otherwise rendering him unable to prevent the man’s escape. Since he is not the accomplice they seek, such an outcome is relatively insignificant (though Marcus will be justifiably put out.) The key variable is still the phone.

Scenario 3: Langston shoots, and does not miss. He himself will die on this street, with its ordinary scents and its commonplace human misery, flanked by cars with pickable locks and weighed down by the certainty that there is a woman in danger whom he could not save. Marcus and his colleague will of course pursue their fugitive. His enemy will still be Watson’s voicemail inbox. All things considered, it is not a bad memorial for a partnership: her idiom in his voice, concluding a report on the work they share. He can only hope that the time for the message expires before it is clear that the shot has found its mark; before Marcus shouts for him; before she hears their friend checking for a pulse in one half of the NYPD’s brace of consultants. He can only hope that the voicemail’s unforgiving minute runs out before he has time to undo the elegance of his accidental epitaph, the matter-of-fact tribute to her influence on him, the everyday paean to her indispensability. He does not want her to hear the rest. He knows — and, he discovers, it is not an unwelcome certainty — that her name will be the last thing on his lips.

***

Remarkably, when caught between a police detective with a bad sight angle and a wiry Englishman armed with nothing at all, the man puts his gun down. Truly the stupidity of criminals is virtually boundless. He still finds himself impelled to pace rapidly away, giddy with the release of tension, enraged at the futility of their errand, and unspeakably relieved. _And you, my sinews, grow not instant old…_

“Hey,” says Marcus, “you okay?” 

He nods rapidly. He cannot seem to make his vocal cords respond. “Yeah,” he says at last. “Yeah.” For Marcus, being surprised by his reactions is no novelty; the detective will take the declaration politely at face value and move on. And not today, not today, will he break Watson’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line about sinews is from _Hamlet_. The "unforgiving minute" is from Kipling, because Sherlock went to posh English schools; no matter how much of an anti-imperialist you are, you can't unlearn "If" if you're set it at age 9.


	12. Crowned Clown, Downtown Brown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contains much banter, almost no plot, and a passing reference to verbal harassment.

It says something about their partnership that saving the city’s water supply barely registers for her as something out of the ordinary. Another day, another corrupt businessman-cum-government-official. 

“I’m sorry I temporarily filtered your champagne,” she says.

“Your attempt at contrition is unconvincing, Watson.”

“Forgive me for not wanting to be vulnerable to a metropolis-poisoning maniac.”

“Mm. I note that the workman responsible left a double scuff in our entryway; did he also make lewd remarks to you?”

“What? No! What does the one have to do with the other?”

“Inattention to professionalism is like a cancer.”

“If you say so. What makes you think I wouldn’t have broken his nose if he’d said something?”

“Single-minded dedication to the task at hand, Watson, and a remarkable gift of self-command.”

“…Thanks.” She pauses in cutting up Clyde’s vegetables. “I’m sure I don’t want to know the answer to this question, but: what made you think he might have said something?” A few moments later, the answer comes to her: "Did he say something about me to _you?_ "

Sherlock sighs. He sniffs in a way she had once thought extinct with the country squires of the eighteenth century, and the life that was natural to their class. “I am sure he thought it passed for a quip,” he says. “It adhered to the standard of decorum that demands that if things are vulgar, they shall be vulgar without being funny.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Did it really?”

“Typical of a mind nurtured on the sensational press, I am afraid. Still, if he did not make himself a nuisance to you, there is perhaps no reason for him to be persecuted.”

“Yeah,” says Joan, “let’s let that one go.” She places Clyde’s plate in the terrarium. “Would you use a glass kettle if I bought you one to go with our tap water?”

“Has something happened to the kettle?”

“No; I just thought an electric one might be quicker.”

“Copper has unique powers of heat conduction, Watson, and imparts no impurities of flavor. But it is a kindly thought.”

“Yeah, well. I wouldn’t want you to think I was indifferent to your relationship with tea.”

“The traitorous thought,” he says, “never crossed my mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The double scuff of the workman's boot is taken from CROO, the country squires from GREE. The comments about the sensational press, vulgarity, and humor are freely adapted from G.K. Chesterton.
> 
> As a tea person, I don't understand why Sherlock doesn't get an electric kettle (ceramic and glass won't pollute the tea! They're so much faster than stovetop kettles! There's an extra spot in the wall outlet Joan uses for her coffee maker!) Theories on this welcomed.


	13. Over a Barrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emotional hurt/comfort. And medieval baked goods.

She will not, she will not go downstairs. She will not open her door, to listen for his movements elsewhere in the house. She will not pace the parameters of her room, she will not get out of bed. It is a solitary bargaining, herself the only enforcer of its terms. She will remain motionless, and she will breathe regularly, and she will go back to sleep, because there is nothing to fear. Joan Watson inhales sharply, suddenly convinced that she is going to cry. 

There is a soft tapping on her door, a double rap, not repeated. “Watson?” says a familiar voice from the hallway. “May I come in?”

She is ridiculously, embarrassingly grateful that he is there. She clears her throat. “Yeah,” says Joan; “I’m awake.”

The doorknob turns, but his entrance is delayed, sidling. He is carrying a tea tray. Joan wipes away the tears that have spilled over.

“Watson.”

“Sherlock.”

He sets the tray down with an absurd delicacy. “I thought you might like some tea.”

If she doesn’t take herself in hand, she will start crying and she will not be able to stop, and she has no idea how he would react to that (except: badly.) “How did you even know I was awake?”

“You know my methods.”

“That’s not an answer.” With a jerky movement he proffers her favorite mug. “Thanks.” She molds her chilled hands to its shape. He has not put extra sugar in the tea — trust him to be a purist even at a time like this — but she finds that it does make her feel better. He must be rubbing off on her. She pulls her knees up in the bed and notices something else about the tray.

“You made cookies?”

“Mm.” He rubs his knuckles vigorously against the back of his freshly-shorn head. “Recipe of Hildegard von Bingen, twelfth century. Scientist, composer, physician — remarkable woman. They are designed,” he says, a little hesitantly, “to comfort the heart and to dispel sadness. That’s a — a rough translation of the Latin.”

“Is that so?” She takes a cookie and breaks it in half. It is dry, crumbly, slightly chewy. But there is a sweetness in the crumbs that stick between her teeth, and an aftertaste of ginger that reminds her of the candies of her childhood. “These are really nice.”

He gives her one of those sudden, uncertain smiles that he means to be reassuring (they aren’t) and returns to contemplating his own mug of tea. She follows his gaze, and notices that the meniscus is not quite steady; it catches the dim light from the street in an unpredictable series of flashes. She looks at her partner’s face, pale in that same glow of the city’s night. The hollows under his eyes are bruise-dark, the shadows under his cheekbones as definite as if they had been carved. _A fine pair we are._

“You want to tell me about Hildegard’s magical cookies?”

He glances up briefly; he still can’t seem to meet her eyes for any length of time. “Their function,” he says slowly, “is complex. The chief ingredient is sugar, thought to be the most perfect of all foods. I have used spelt flour as a binding agent of sorts, but sugar — ” he nods vigorously, as if to drive home a point — “sugar is key. Likewise the spices, brought over vast distances: they are warming, quickening the blood and the motion of the heart… dispelling melancholy.”

“That’s lovely.”

“Don’t.” He jerks his head to the side; his mouth twists. “Don’t indulge me, Watson.”

“I’m not.” She pours herself a second cup of tea. “You’re the one making me anti-sadness cookies in the middle of the night.”

“Hmm.” It is a throaty, unhappy noise.

She sighs. “He made the decision to hold up that diner.” She needs to say the words aloud, for both their sakes. “Neither of us is to blame. Even if it doesn’t feel that way.” 

“You saved that man’s life, Watson.”

“Yeah.” She massages her temples with her fingertips. “It felt like the only possible choice.”

“It was, for you.” He says it with absolute simplicity, and absolute conviction. 

She takes several sips of almond oolong before she trusts herself to speak again. “It _was_ awful, but it was easier because you trusted me.” He looks up; this time he holds her gaze, with a an aching openness. “It was easier because you didn’t…” She hesitates: _explode? patronize? panic? protest?_ “…fuss,” she ends lamely. 

“Ha.”

Joan replaces her mug on the tray. “Don’t think I didn’t notice,” she says, “that you defeated time for me.” Again his eyes come to rest on her, glassy with exhaustion, unremitting in their intensity. She watches the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

“Not soon enough.”

“Don’t.”

He nods, accepting the reproach with surprising meekness. “I’d do as much again, Watson. You know that.”

“I do. But right now, I think we should both get some sleep.” He takes his _congé_ like a courtier, getting to his feet and taking the tray in a single motion. “And no flux capacitors,” she adds drowsily.

“Not unless you need one, Watson.”

“Good night, Sherlock.”

She is asleep before he closes the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to make anti-sadness cookies, a version of the recipe is here: http://www.victoriasweet.com/vsmd/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/anti-depressant-cookies-2.pdf (They're better with spelt flour, though, if you have it.)


	14. Rekt in Real Life

“I hope you have no plans for this weekend, Watson.”

“That sounds ominous.” 

“I’ve obtained tickets to this — ” he waves a hand — “tournament _cum_ exposition _cum_ foregathering _cum_ …”

“I get the picture. But why do you want to spend a weekend surrounded by games and gamers? Isn’t the case closed?”

“It is, and I am not going.”

“Okay, you’re going to have to explain.”

“Recalling your expertise in such matters, I intimated to our new acquaintances that you were an enthusiast. The somewhat unimaginative business-owner whom we exonerated proved only too happy to express his gratitude and — ” again a contemptuous hand — “goodwill by furnishing us with access.”

“Us meaning, in this case…”

“Well, precisely: you, and I thought perhaps your brother.”

“That’s…” She stops sorting through their mail. She can’t deny her interest, but the idea of spending a weekend in the company of preening gamers, desperate self-advertisers, and the companies who sell to them…

“True,” says Sherlock, answering her thought, “our look at the world of esports has suggested that it is a rather insalubrious one, but the same could be said of our perspective on any number of enterprises.”

“I… fair enough.” She sighs. She cannot imagine anyone else managing to combine _presumptuous_ and _considerate_ with such effortless extravagance in both qualities. “Thanks,” she says. “Really. It’ll be good to spend time with Oren. It was nice of you to think of it. High-handed, but nice.”

“I did ascertain,” says Sherlock formally, “that a number of so-called vintage systems and games will be exhibited…”

“So-called vintage…! That’s my childhood you’re talking about.” She takes the glossy folder from his hands. “Oh, Oren will have to see this.”

He glances up at her, uncharacteristically diffident. “I would not want you,” he says, “to feel constrained by the work we do.”

“I know. You’ve said as much — repeatedly. Please believe me when I say that I don’t. I promise to enjoy myself,” she adds, relenting. “Are you going to spend your weekend being a lonely genius?”

He crosses to the stove and fills the kettle. “Presuming that nothing unusual arises for our friends at the 11th, I thought of attending the David Lean festival.”

She feigns indignation. “So you’re getting rid of me!”

“Never that, Watson.”

She makes a moue at him. “Are you going to critique Alec Guinness’ Russian accent? Appreciate young Peter O’Toole’s face? Bask in Rachmaninov at train stations?”

“The festival presents a rare opportunity,” says her partner, with ostentatious dignity, “to view some of Lean’s earlier and collaborative projects, not merely affirming the complexity and vibrancy of working-class protagonists, but exploring questions of technology and society…”

“Let me guess, you always cry during _This Happy Breed._ ” He clears his throat vigorously, not looking at her. “I knew it. What’s playing on Sunday night? I’ll need an excuse to leave the company of self-satisfied 20-year-olds.”

“Cinematographic masterpiece,” he says promptly. “Characteristically nuanced performance from Claude Rains. Remarkable use of chiaroscuro.”

“Perfect,” she says. “I’ll buy the popcorn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering how emotional Sherlock gets over Laurel & Hardy, hypothesizing a susceptibility to the (imho) pitch-perfect drama of common human decency and resilience did not seem far-fetched. David Lean! Noel Coward! Celia Johnson’s face! The phonograph scene! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95jQ97d_DvI
> 
> The film Sherlock and Joan go to see together is (what else?) _The Passionate Friends_ , which really is stunningly good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGj5ggh47ps. To my knowledge, the last time there was a David Lean festival in the city was 2012, but Sherlock’s observations about the programming stand.


	15. Wrong Side of the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate POV/missing scene bridging episodes 15 and 16. Sherlock thinks about death, medieval Japanese killer ghosts, and 18th-century French poetry. And, of course, Watson.

There is no viable alternative. And yet he dislikes — he more than dislikes — the sense of being outmaneuvered, of being compelled to a course of action. He walks past the idling vans and idle soldiers without breaking stride. He may at least have the element of surprise. And he has, of course, the advantage of being able to learn more about them in a matter of moments than they could learn about him in the kind of tedious briefing they have doubtless received. The woman on the walkie-talkie has a crush on the woman opposite her and is trying not to show it. Judging by the way the other woman is playing with her curls, these attempts at subterfuge are counterproductive. The fact that they are both relaxed enough to be concerned with such things is a good sign. The man carrying the box of documents is nervous, but not about his skills or his role; he may be nervous about their contents. The man carrying Bob is irritable, but — as evidenced by his shoes — not habitually so. And in the center of all this organized movement, watching his underlings as a spider watches the quiver of a filament, is the man he seeks.

Outmaneuvered he may be; stymied he may be; powerless he is not. He may yet be able to startle his adversary into yielding up useful information. His first volley — the robust indignation of an innocent householder — is unsuccessful. The attention of those who are systematically going through his things barely flickers. Gephardt himself is not quite opaque, but he is unruffled. He is not only smug; he is _confident._ Being presented with his own likeness causes neither the preening or the indignation of a vain man. Gephardt remains smiling, impassive, matter-of-fact, as indifferent as a serpent. 

He had calculated that immediate arrest was an improbability. But they are confident enough to dare even that. The soldier who takes him firmly by the arm is not surprised by the request. More worrisome is the fact that none of them seems to expect a dangerous or a desperate man. Still, they take for granted that he must and shall be put under arrest, escorted down his own front stoop, and efficiently bundled into the nearest van.

Bound and hooded, he has time to reflect. Ascertaining the precise location of their holding cells would not be productive; he can allocate his mental resources elsewhere. 

He will not think of the fear in Watson’s face as she took Kitty by the arm and prepared to walk away from him.

He will not think of the bright, serious eyes of Kitty’s son, Archibald.

He will not think of Kitty, fearful and fierce, Kitty who left and who returned.

The van’s motor growls, the rubber-stripped floor beneath him trembles. He must _think._ But he is nauseated by the heat, the dark, the movement, the scent of too many bodies, too many panicked breaths drawn against the hood now muffling his head. He is, he reflects, well-positioned to become a goryō. He is not sure if his death will be accidental (except, of course, officially) but it is almost certain to occur under unusual circumstances. And there is, of course, the tradition that a spirit could become a goryō by willing such a fate for themselves at the moment of death. But there must, there must be a corporeal culprit; there must be a not-impossible solution that he has, inexcusably, failed to see.

He is not sure why they choose to handcuff him on arrival. Any attempt at escape would be worse than foolhardy. The corridors are soundproofed, and so sparsely populated that it must be by design. His handlers are not rough, exactly; they are merely careless of him. His wrist is fastened to the chair before he is unmasked. In the small room where he finds himself, everything has a purpose. _My tongue cleaveth to my jaws._ He dips one fingertip into the glass of water. A sip, held carefully in the mouth before swallowing, confirms his initial hypothesis. The _trompe l’oeil_ effects of paint and paving are crude, but nonetheless an irritant to the well-ordered mind, like grit in a sensitive instrument. Sherlock closes his eyes.

“Rien n'est beau que le vrai: le vrai seul est aimable.” The reverberations tell him that the room is soundproofed, and that the wall behind him is blank.

“Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.” Yes, it would seem that the room is — appearances to the contrary — perfectly square, and that he is in the center of it. It would also seem that his captors are difficult to insult, and that they have not read Boileau-Despréaux. 

It is, by his calculation, more than seven hours before Gephardt makes his appearance. The man’s confidence has not slipped, though his tie knot — deplorably sloppy to begin with — has. So has his patience, to judge by the promptitude with which he empties three rounds of a pistol into sheet glass. And then there are the threats; there is the confession. Sherlock’s nerves prickle with the promise of victory. If Gephardt is afraid, then they must have enough to incriminate him. And Watson will find it, the not-impossible solution, as long as they have left her free. They must have left her free. He himself can be made hostage — the sins of the father — but over Watson they have no hold. He stares at the edge of the shattered glass. Kitty may be more vulnerable, but Watson will keep her safe. He lets his eyes shut.

They do not bring him food; they do not set him free from the chair. The Geneva Convention would hardly condone it, but it is a strangely negative form of punishment. At last they come for him. Again he is hooded; again, stiff and stumbling, he is propelled down the corridors. Images of 18th-century drawings float before his mind’s eye. How to ensure the downfall of a sea-green incorruptible like Gephardt? 

The turnings of the van and the pace of its progress tell him that they are in lower Manhattan and that it is morning. When the van accelerates around a corner, he tries to brace himself, tries to prepare for the inevitable. In the event, the driver slows down enough that he does not even fall. But he is breathless and blind and exhausted and then — then he is being pulled out of traffic with fine-boned hands, surgeon’s hands that still smell of beeswax. That Watson is prepared to accept his facts and give him her news while attempting to saw him free from a zip tie is, of course, the result of long and rigorous training. Still, shivering and fidgeting on the sidewalk, he finds it a matter of wonder that she should be so ready to accept him and to resume their work, both immediately and without question. Only her unsteadiness as she attempts to undo the zip tie betrays her anxiety. It is tempting to offer reassurance. But he remembers the shattered glass that concealed no listeners, the water that was not poisoned, the room that was one among many. He could offer her no comfort that would not be a lie. And he cannot think how to express that her examining his hands for signs of torture is the sweetest homecoming he can recall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lines of Boileau-Despréaux that Sherlock quotes may be translated as:
> 
> 1) Nothing is beautiful but that which is true: only truth is worthy of love.
> 
> 2) A fool always finds a bigger fool who admires him.
> 
> Boileau-Despréaux also once observed that "Le vrai peut quelquefois n'être pas vraisemblable," that which is true can sometimes be implausible. The fact that Sherlock reads Boileau-Despréaux I take from STUD.


	16. Fidelity

She has rarely seen Sherlock so out of his element. Ordinarily, he seems to carve a path through the world, sniffing and inhaling, fidgeting and striding and crawling. Even his repose seems a kind of action, or a prelude to it. Here, however, he is simply still. Joan can’t help but feel that their oddly-assorted little group is rather dwarfed by a space built to hold hundreds of people and the infinite.

“Are you expecting anyone else?” 

“No,” says Kitty, “this is us.” 

“In that case,” says the priest easily, “we can begin.” He sweeps out ahead of them, to face the great west doors. _Oh_ , Joan realizes belatedly, _this is going to be theatre._

At first, Sherlock’s voice is a gravelly murmur beneath her own. How two commandment-breaking consultant detectives are supposed to help Archie grow into the full stature of Christ is admittedly an open question. Still, becoming godmother to a baby who will grow up calling her Auntie Watson over transatlantic video calls is far from the strangest thing she’s done since becoming a detective. On reflection, she thinks it’s one of the nicest. And it’s what Kitty wants; for her, that’s enough. But her partner, now balancing on the balls of his feet behind her, has never liked dissimulation. It is strangely easy to imagine him attending chapel services as a schoolboy, strangely difficult to imagine him in any sort of relationship with the divine. 

“Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?”

“I renounce them,” she says, jiggling Archie on her hip.

“Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”

“I renounce them.” Sherlock’s voice echoes off the stone, suddenly forceful, and she can’t resist glancing over at him. In doing so, she catches Kitty’s eye. She, too, is looking at the man between them, her gaze full of affection. There is something else, too: a wistful knowledge. And Joan, who has never taken a position on the creeds she is dutifully and dishonestly mouthing, finds herself formulating a prayer: _Please, let him live to see Archie grow up._

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

This answer she can give confidently: “I will.”

Seeing Sherlock’s face when Archie, fresh from the font, is put into his arms, Joan gains sudden insight into Kitty’s inexplicable uncertainty. His pupils are blown wide as with fear or desire, his expression solemn and heartbreakingly open. He stands uncharacteristically and unexpectedly at ease. Kitty’s son, squirming, smears holy oil on his jacket. The priest proclaims their membership in an eternal household. Joan promises herself to find a moment to explain to the younger woman: _I haven’t seen him with a ten-pound spider, but I’ve seen him face bombs and armed thugs and betrayal, and none of them does this to him. Yes, he looks as though he was struck over the occipital bone. Yes, he looks as though he expects some sudden dissolution to occur if he moves too suddenly, or dares to breathe. This is what he looks like when someone offers him hope._


	17. The Ballad of Lady Frances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Limited omniscient POV, in which the NYPD's finest undertake to teach their resident genius a thing or two.

Gregson groans as he leans back in his chair. “What a mess.”

Bell smiles ruefully. “I could take more messes like that. All the pieces fall into place, turn out to actually fit together; we get the help we need from the tech geeks; we get a criminal thoughtful enough to leave us his DNA. And we put away the guy who’s been making us look bad.”

“Yeah,” agrees Gregson wryly, “and now we get to deal with the fallout.” Bell shrugs.

“I can’t believe he smashed a priceless guitar,” says Watson, inconsequentially. “A piece of history like that… even as an improvised weapon, surely he’d use anything else?”

“Not if the Lady Frances was evidence,” says Gregson. “At least she marked him for us. Joan,” he adds, “how serious was Sherlock about not knowing who Eric Clapton is?”

She sighs. “I hate to say it, but…”

Gregson holds up a hand. “Okay. Marcus, are you free tonight?”

Bell raises one eyebrow. “I can be.”

“Good. Joan?”

“Yeah — I mean, Sherlock’s working on some unsolved murder from 1895 that he insists will place the international intrigues of the time in an entirely new light, but… it can wait. Obviously.”

Gregson leans forward over his desk. “We can’t move forward here until we get more evidence processed. I propose that we work on the education of our resident genius.”

***

“Why are we navigating Chelsea on a Wednesday evening, Watson?”

“You’ll see!” It is an airy assurance; she makes it without breaking stride.

“I can _hear_ you gloating.”

“I’m sure you can. We’re meeting the Captain and Marcus.”

He quickens his pace to walk alongside her, letting other pedestrians work around them. “There was nothing on the scanner.”

“We are going out. Well, going out to stay in.”

“Watson…”

“Data,” she says crisply. “We’ve all decided there’s a dangerous lacuna in yours.”

“Complacency does not suit you, Watson.”

“Eric Clapton,” she explains patiently, and pivots on one perilous heel to enter a florist’s.

“And the Captain has extended an offer of hospitality, which you have accepted for both of us.”

“I knew you’d get there.” He takes a breath, but does not immediately speak. Browsing along the ranks of refrigerated blossoms, she adds: “If you say a _word_ about me presuming to make plans on your behalf, I will laugh in your face. And then I will remind you…”

“Gladioli,” says Sherlock.

“What?”

“They symbolize strength of character, faithfulness, honor. Given your current mood, of course, delphiniums might be more appropriate, for levity — though they can also indicate ardent attachment.”

“I… why do you know this?”

“It arose in connection with the Tarleton murders. Before your time, Watson.”

“So you could pass a mid-century housewife’s test on the language of flowers, but _Eric Clapton…_ ” He effectively silences her by stalking over to the counter, and commencing negotiations. She lets him work; showing off to the florist might make him more bearable for the rest of the night. He thrusts the completed bouquet into her arms with an air of triumph.

“Lovely,” says Joan, into the gladioli. 

***

He takes off their coats reflexively, and then stands as though expecting the hooks of their entryway to materialize.

“These are gorgeous,” says Paige, taking the gladioli, “but you really didn’t have to…”

“Sherlock picked them out.” Joan does not quite smirk, watching her partner look anywhere but at their hosts.

“Eric Clapton is English,” says Gregson by way of greeting. “You have no excuse.”

“Sherlock — Joan.” Marcus looks up only briefly from the LPs he is examining when they enter the living room.

“I didn’t know I’d be sharing this man with his record collection,” says Paige, but there is no sting in her voice.

“Yeah, well… I started buying when there were still record stores, and I still had a morning off once in a while. You know what they say about old habits.”

“What do you have for us?” Joan tucks her feet under her on the couch.

“We’re starting last year in San Diego. The plan is to get to ‘60s London by the end of the night.”

Gregson drops the needle; the crowd roars.

 _Don't you know what's wrong with me?_  
_I'm seeing things I don't want to see._  
_Sniffing things that ain't no good for me._  
_I'm going down fast, won't you say a prayer for me?_  
_It's got to get better in a little while…_  


Joan watches her partner’s face change. By the time the guitar takes off, they are all rapt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why Sherlock didn't know and _love_ Eric Clapton. ("Tell the Truth"! "Deserted Cities of the Heart"! Etc.! Etc.!) And then I created this indulgent thing, because I think he really should. Here's that wild recording of "Got to Get Better in a Little While": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7kutzrTajM. If the true connoisseur should have picked a different version, blame me, not Captain Gregson.
> 
> Also: if I've missed a canon detail on where Gregson lives now, do let me know... I figured out that he'd be able to afford a place in this neighborhood on his salary, and chose it because it would be convenient to the hypothesized location of the 11th, and to Paige's bookshop.
> 
> Please feel free to hypothesize Sherlock waking Watson with "Sunshine of your Love" one fine morning.


	18. Dead Man's Tale

She gets out of the shower to find her notifications: Sherlock, voicemail and missed call. She puts the message on speaker while toweling her hair. For once, it’s not an observation about post-mortem bruising or trade regulations or the chemical composition of ink. For once, she thinks, it’s normal. And then she hears the grunt of surprise as the breath leaves his body (one blow to the back of the head, blunt instrument, unseen assailant.) The following sounds are confused: footsteps, another groan, something duller — and then the sound of a body hitting the ground. _You think I wouldn’t notice?_ The voice is irate and familiar. It is followed by the unmistakable skittering of the phone over concrete, the crunch into silence.

Joan plays the message again. Her finger hovers over the button a third time; she does not press play. She is certain that there will be no detail she has missed, no tiny fragment of data that would help her place him. And there will be no room for doubt that the voice is Shinwell’s. 

“911, what is the nature of your emergency?”

“Ambulance, about three blocks from St. Olaf’s,” she responds instantly. 

“Your name, ma’am?”

“Joan Watson — I’m fine; I’m not there; I’m reporting an assault.”

“Is there ongoing danger?”

She takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. About 5 minutes ago, my partner left a voicemail — he should be within a three-block radius from St. Olaf’s. White male, mid-forties, navy pea coat, black knitted cap.” She swallows. “Probably prone. Possibly unconscious. Blunt force trauma to skull, other injuries… unknown.”

“You’re doing great,” says the voice on the other end of the line; she recognizes the tone of professional reassurance. “Help is on the way. Can you give me any other information?”

She knows what the answer to that should be. She lies anyway. “No, I’m sorry. He was attacked while leaving the message, he — they smashed his phone.”

“Okay. We’ll find him. What number can we reach you at?”

She gives it to them, makes her thanks, hangs up. She can feel the tensions dispelled by her workout returning in force, creeping up her spine, tightening her jaw, settling in her shoulders. And there is nothing to do but wait.

Joan scrubs the sink with vinegar. She fills the kettle, stubbornly letting the water level climb until there’s enough for a two-person pot. She cleans out Clyde’s terrarium. (She puts on “Das Lied von der Erde” to cheer him up.) She does jumping jacks in the center of the floor. She reflects on the contents of Sherlock’s voicemail, and comes up with her next course of action.

She cuts a pound of carrots into roughly even lengths, and lets them sit in salt while making the marinade — garlic, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil. Once the carrots are pickling, she starts the dough for the scallion pancakes. Luckily, there are still dumpling wrappers in the freezer. She puts them down on the table with enough force that Clyde retreats into his shell. 

With the dough resting in the fridge, she shreds cabbage with surgical precision. She dices onion, and grates carrot. She breaks an egg and mixes it in with her bare hands. She minces ginger so that the kitchen fills with the smell. Her phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Watson?” There is an indistinct commotion in the background. “Take it easy, sir.”

“Yes, yes, this is she.” She is giddy with relief, gripping the edge of the counter. Even if they won’t let her talk to the imperious patient responsible for the second remark, she has assurance that he’s conscious, alert and irritable as ever.

“We have your partner.”

“I know. I mean, yes. Thank you. Can I — ”

“Watson.”

It is all she can do not to laugh. “Sherlock, thank god. Give that poor man back his phone.”

“Very well.” The ready acquiescence is so unlike him that her heart turns over. “I thought — I surmised — ”

“You were right,” she says. “I did want to hear your voice. Do you want me to come?”

“Not necessary.” His voice is slightly slurred, but she thinks that bruising is more likely to be responsible than concussion. She hopes she’s right. “As soon as I can.” As so often, he answers the question before she asks it.

“Okay. I’m going to let you go now.”

“Yes.”

She hardly knows what she replies to the EMT. She sets her phone down on the kitchen table and goes upstairs. Another shower, a good cry, and she’ll be ready to face what comes next.

She finishes preparing the meal clad in her pajamas and favorite shrug. When she hears his footsteps in the hall, she lights the burner under the kettle.

He is standing in the hallway, his coat still on, as though he has forgotten what comes next. When he sees her, though, his gaze focuses. “Watson.”

“Are you okay?”

“Of course. What’s a beating from a former friend?”

“Sorry.” She is taking his coat off as she speaks, moving as delicately as she can.

“Monstrously inefficient, Watson.” His teeth are not quite chattering. “Vastly inferior to your own ministrations.”

“Meaning the ER?”

“Mm.”

“Well,” she says, undoing his shoelaces, “they have a slightly larger clientèle than I do these days. Though you’re enough to keep anyone busy.”

“There is much to tell, Watson.” He is swaying on his feet.

“Yeah.” She takes a fold of his sleeve between thumb and forefinger. “Come to the kitchen. I’ve made us food.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think that I've committed a dreadful faux pas by having Joan willing to use pre-made dumpling wrappers under duress, let me know and I'll change it. 
> 
> The choice of "Das Lied von der Erde" is based on the information that Clyde likes Mahler. It's a piece about (among other things) friendship, and desire, and loss.


	19. High Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was upset that Sherlock seemed uncharacteristically to depart from treating Joan as a partner in "assigning" her the exam... so this covers her reaction to that, in a 221b drabble.

She decides to humor him. Like the valedictorian she was, she gets the measure of the exam before starting it: it allows just under two minutes per question. She takes notes as she goes:

_Revise question 17._  
Consider using scenarios from cold cases we’ve solved, e.g. Isadora Persano, Bert Stevens.  
Check wording of question 60.  
Adjust relative importance of tobacco ash in light of constantly-expanding NYC smoking regulations. 

She finishes with ten minutes to spare. She finds him on the floor of the living room, surrounded by photographs of gunshot wounds. He is fast asleep, half curled-in on himself. Joan sighs. Very gently, she places the exam on top of his evidence of destruction. 

Joan does not want to be in this failure-haunted house. She fastens the gold bee pin he gave her to the shoulder of her favorite black dress, and departs for the opera. Puccini’s melodrama, she tells herself, offers a sense of perspective. But she grips her hands together tightly as Cavaradossi saves the wrong man, and is killed for it; as Tosca trusts the wrong man, and dies for it.

When she returns to the brownstone, Sherlock is neither asleep nor alone. But he has left the exam outside her door, with a scrawled note of his own: _Brava._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bee pin from the previous episode caused me to have Many Feelings. Sometimes opera is escapist and sometimes it seems predestined to crush your heart in the worst ways; it seems a safe bet that the Met will be doing _Tosca_ in any given season. (I am really curious about how they got to _Der Freischütz_ , however, and hypothesize that she insisted on taking him for her birthday.)


	20. The Art of Sleights and Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really like Ms. Hudson. And I've discovered the joys of 221b drabbles.

“Do I want to know?” asks Ms. Hudson, on seeing the evidence room.

Joan sighs. “We went looking for a magician and found a Nazi.”

“And this was necessary?”

“As with all his most inconvenient ideas, sort of.”

“Uh-huh. Well, never mind.”

“I’ll make us some tea,” says Joan.

For some time they work in companionable silence, Ms. Hudson bringing order to the playing cards, Joan to her inbox. Clyde (brought up to socialize) wears a cozy that matches that of the teapot.

“So the business includes Nazi-hunting now?”

“Apparently. That’s what he’s off doing; he said it would be a shame to waste good intelligence gathered on appalling people.”

Ms. Hudson frowns. “Is that…”

“Safe? Legal? Good for him? We both know that all those questions have the same answer. Actually, he may have found a loophole for the second one. How’s business with you?”

Ms. Hudson brightens. “It’s going great. I never thought I’d stick with cleaning this long, but…” She shrugs. “I’m good at what I do. And you’d be surprised at how many people are willing to pay for a part-time housekeeper. With or without elaborate fantasy scenarios.”

“I… wow. Good for you. Sounds like you’ve found your niche market. I take partial credit for the housekeeping idea, though.”

“Well, sure, sweetheart; you’re brilliant.”


	21. Fly into a Rage, Make a Bad Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for oblique mentions of child abuse. Also for consumption of insects. Canon allusions are taken from BLUE, ILLU, and YELL.

It’s no more than half a mile’s walk to the restaurant. By the time they have covered half that distance, their silence has thickened considerably, and Marcus has had time to reflect on how many meals he hasn’t had over the course of the past few days.

“Hey, Sherlock?” The other man stops so abruptly that Marcus mentally fills in the cloud of dust and accompanying sound effect of his childhood cartoons. “You’ve lived here long enough to know better than to do that on a New York sidewalk.”

“Mm. You were saying?”

“This restaurant…”

Sherlock flashes him an uncharacteristically anxious look. “If you would prefer,” he says, “we can of course seek out an alternative…”

“No,” says Marcus, “no; let’s try your insect restaurant. What I was going to say is — I’ll try it, if you promise not to let me see a menu. And I’d prefer not to know how many legs my dinner had.”

“Understood. Consider it done.”

***

“This soup,” begins Marcus.

“Is not the one with silkworms in it.”

“Thanks.”

They consume most of their first course in a silence that Marcus finds unexpectedly restful. He tries to probe his own feelings, but he cannot find resentment or fear concealed beneath his weariness. Rather to his own surprise, he discovers that what he is most conscious of is relief. He knows all the scripts about victims’ self-blame; his childhood has still been a closely-guarded secret. And yet, despite Sherlock’s idiosyncrasies or because of them, it’s nice to have someone else besides the NYPD psychologist in on it.

“Chantal will have to know,” says his dinner companion.

Marcus narrows his eyes. “Does Joan ever tell you it’s creepy when you do that?”

“It has been mentioned. _Unnerving_ is her word of choice.”

“Yeah.” Marcus sighs. “I know. And I will tell her, when we’re… when she… when things are better.” For a few moments, he devotes himself to the soup that is not made of worms. “I was always going to,” he says; “it’s just…” He reflects uneasily that Sherlock is probably able to complete the sentence more honestly than he could himself. Their server comes to clear the dishes.

“I have told Watson things,” says Sherlock to the edge of the table, “that I long thought I would confide to no other living soul. The first time,” he adds, “I did it by proxy.”

“I won’t need a proxy,” says Marcus. “Thanks for the offer, though. I think.”

Sherlock gives one of those wolfish grins that is not quite a smile. “I have listened to a good many strange secrets,” he says. “You need have no anxiety about yours.” Before Marcus can interject, he continues: “I can think of no greater villainy than that of the man who, methodically and at his leisure, tortures body and soul of those within his power.”

“Yeah.” Marcus is grateful when the diversion of their main course arrives. He tries not to look too closely at Sherlock’s platter. His own galette is flavored with reassuringly recognizable spices, and its only crunch comes from kale. What its flour is made of he does not need to know.

“You said you knew,” he says. They are drinking water; he must attribute his own lack of reserve to sheer exhaustion. Sherlock meets his eyes briefly, but does not speak. “You said you knew,” says Marcus again. “Not that you knew of, not that you understood… but that you _knew_ the harm it did. _Knew_ the before and after.” He could not articulate fully why it matters so much to him, why he is so willing to press his friend on a point where they have been mutually reserved. But if Sherlock insists on considering himself more expendable than his friends, he cannot insist on remaining less vulnerable.

Sherlock slams his fist down on the table. The buzz of conversation around them ebbs for a few seconds, and flows back. The two of them remain silent for several moments longer. At last Marcus focuses his attention beneath the whitened knuckles, the clenched fingers. There is the last of a string of letters, inked as definitely as those in a medieval gospel. And there, crossing the blue veins, beneath the tattoo, is an old scar, curved and wicked. He looks up, and finds Sherlock watching him.

“Compound fracture,” he says, the English vowels even more clipped than usual. “Self-set. Otherwise untreated. You and I have… similar feelings about hospitals, it would seem. I do not presume,” adds Sherlock quickly, “to know or comprehend the kind of active cruelty you have endured.”

“Okay. You don’t presume. We’ll take that as read.” In the ensuing silence, the server clears their plates.

“What I do know something of,” says Sherlock quietly, “is the very great loneliness, the — the resignation that comes to a child compelled to bear pain alone.”

Marcus takes a deep breath. Long professional experience has taught him to recognize when a confession is over. “The other night,” he says, “about Ukhov…”

“It is not the first time,” says Sherlock, “that I have committed a felony in the hope that I might — just possibly — be saving a soul.”

Marcus feels his eyebrows climb. “As a detective, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. As your friend… thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” says Sherlock. “Dessert?”

Marcus finds himself smiling. “Dessert,” he says, “would be great.”


	22. Moving Targets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 221b drabble, and shameless fluff for Marcus and Chantal (since everything else is going horribly wrong.)

“Would you believe it,” asks Marcus, “if I told you that this was the best part of my day?”

Chantal smiles. “You do know how to make a girl feel special. But — ” she tilts her head towards the rest of the rehab center’s cafeteria — “this can’t be your idea of a hot date spot.”

“You got me there.” He reaches across the table for her hand. “We’ll celebrate properly soon.”

“Sure.” She toys with her rice pilaf. “It’ll be a while before we can go dancing.”

“Hey.” He waits until she looks up to meet his eyes. “I know how this goes, remember? It’s long. It’s hard. Doesn’t mean you can’t do it.” He reaches out to cup her jawline. “I bet you smash all their records.”

She kisses the heel of his palm. “Thanks.”

“Get a room!” shouts an ancient wag from an adjacent table. Blushing, Marcus drops his hand.

Chantal makes a face. “Hip replacement.” Marcus hides his laughter in his tinted plastic cup. “So,” she says, “you want to tell me why you’re worried?”

“Damn, you’re good.”

“Lawyer, remember?”

“Yeah.” Marcus shakes his head. “I wish I knew. Honest. We closed our case, but…” He shrugs.

“Whatever it is,” says Chantal firmly, “you’ll get through it. Tell me you believe me.”

Marcus nods, almost shyly. “Yeah.”

“You’d better.”


	23. Scrambled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I asked myself what would happen if Sherlock went into the church, rather than just lingering in its garden. A 221b drabble in which Sherlock has a lot of ambivalent feelings about religion, among other things.

_Let sinners be consumed from the earth,  
    and let the wicked be no more!_

No one seems to find his presence particularly remarkable. He sits at the back of the hall, opposite the customary position of his chair. The ikons, all made recently, he surmises, and for this place, are an imposing sight. He wonders how his fellow-addicts manage it, making their confessions surveilled by the ranks of saints and angels. He sits quite deliberately with his back to them, with his back to the solemn woman with kind eyes who holds her son, unable to protect him from the pain of the world. Now, she seems to gaze at him. They kiss the hem of her robe as they come in, the worshippers — from the arthritic bending in careful reverence to children stretching on tiptoe. With the swift assurance of practiced ritual or contemplative deliberation they greet her. 

He practices violin fingerings with his left hand, as though that were the skill he were in danger of losing. 

_What is man that you are mindful of him,  
    and the son of man that you care for him?_

He departs before the conclusion of the second psalm. He waits alone, under the fragrant trees. He knows no one will come to join him on the bench.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The portions of the psalms in italics are taken from the Orthodox Vespers liturgy. The Theotokos icon in question is this one, known as Theotokos the Healer, or Theotokos Quick to Hear: http://canacopegdl.com/single.php?id=http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1136/4188/products/Theotokos_the_Healer_icon_grande.JPG?v\x3d1467061075.


	24. Hurt Me, Hurt You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This may be superseded/contradicted in a matter of mere weeks, but I promised a series of episode codas, and here we are, wallowing in angst and _Jane Eyre_ allusions. Note that the authorial tendency to go to bits when loved ones are hospitalized may color the tone of this, for which apologies. 
> 
> In short: I try to allow Joan her anger, and her fear. If it turns a bit too sweet at the end... I'm not sure I can honestly claim to be sorry (sorry.)

_"The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallen—by conflagration: but how kindled?  What story belonged to this disaster?  What loss, besides mortar and marble and wood-work had followed upon it?"  \--Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter 36_

Joan stares at the wreckage of her partner’s bedroom and thinks about _Jane Eyre._ The blast was clean. There’s no blood on the shattered glass. And the FDNY hasn’t taped the scene. The wreckage doesn’t follow the pattern of a bomb. There’s no evidence of an experiment gone wrong; there wouldn’t be — in all the years of ballistics tests and chemistry experiments, she’s seen him often reckless, but never careless. But if he was here, he’s left the scene without telling the authorities, without even telling her. She is texting him before she’s back in the hallway.

 _Where are you? Don’t even think about not answering this._

She calls the fire department while going over the rest of the house. The disaster appears to have been a limited one. Clyde is dozing in an undamaged kitchen. Their evidence and equipment appears, at a glance, to be intact. She spends several minutes checking the stacks of recent files, the contents of their computers. The more she finds unaffected, the more nervous she becomes. The bees are safe and quiet; he is not with them.

_Sherlock, if you’re not dead or injured, you’re an asshole. Text me._

It is not until she opens the door to the fire department that the thought crosses her mind: _don’t let it be drugs._ Soon it becomes a desperate litany. “Excuse me,” she says abruptly, “I have some calls to make.”

Ms. Hudson generously agrees to come over and help superintend the fire department. Folded in the other woman’s arms, Joan feels herself regain a modicum of steadiness. She resumes her systematic calling of hospitals.

“It’s not a HIPAA violation,” she explains, again and again; “I’m his emergency contact.” And — she does not say — his partner and, _de facto_ , his primary care provider. It would be like him, she reflects bitterly, to try to treat a case of smoke inhalation by ‘taking a constitutional’ or something equally idiotic, and end up passed out in a park somewhere. _Please, please, please don’t let it be drugs._ She calls his phone; it goes to voicemail. 

“You bastard,” says Joan, hating that her voice breaks. “Call me back.” Ms. Hudson presses a mug of tea into her free hand.

She takes a deep breath before calling St. Stephen’s. “Hi, this is Dr. Joan Watson speaking.” _I am about 20 minutes away from a nervous breakdown and a missing person’s report._ “I’m the emergency contact for a Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Can you tell me if he’s a patient at your facility? It’s legal,” she adds, and then, before she can stop herself: “I just want to know he’s safe.” _When has Sherlock Holmes ever been safe?_

“Yes,” says the surprisingly chirpy voice on the other end of the line, “we have a Mr. Sherlock Holmes. He’s checked himself in.”

Joan exhales. “Okay. Thank you. That’s… thank you.” She empties her mug of tea at a single go. She finds Ms. Hudson observing the male contingent of the fire brigade with an air of appreciation that borders on the lubricious. Joan touches the other woman on the arm.

“Martha,” she says, “will you be fine if I…?” She finds herself again enclosed in a reassuringly firm embrace.

“Absolutely fine,” says Martha into her hair. “Feel free to give him my love or a Homeric insult; whichever.”

Despite everything, Joan laughs. “Thanks,” she says; “I’ll do that.”

***

“Holmes,” she says, “Sherlock.” She hands over her own ID for examination.

The receptionist types busily without meeting her eyes. “Neuro unit, 5th floor.”

“The… what?”

“5th floor,” repeats the receptionist, more loudly. She flashes Joan an encouraging grin.

Joan blinks rapidly. “Right.”

On the way up in the elevator, she has time to weigh her facts, and make her deductions. _If you have eliminated the impossible…_ Sherlock simply forgetting things had been classified, quite automatically, as impossible. But if she recategorizes that forgetfulness as merely improbable, and if she adds it to her other evidence… The list of possible causes is a long one. She tells herself that if he had a family history of dementia, she’d know. She tells herself it could be anemia, or B12 deficiency, or hypothyroidism. She tells herself she should have caught it, whatever it is. But then again, when has Sherlock’s brain ever been normal? The elevator dings; Joan swallows, her mouth dry.

 _Please be Quiet on this Floor of the Hospital._ She’s read the literature on noise as a stressor in hospital environments, on best practices for implementing quiet zones and quiet times, the quantifiable impacts on patients and staff. She still hates the sign. It seems too much like an echo of another, far more familiar one: _Taceant colloquia. Effugiat risus…._

“I’m sorry,” says the nurse at the desk; “were you looking for someone?”

“Sherlock Holmes.” The young man’s brow remains furrowed. Joan Watson takes a deep breath. Very briefly she imagines twisting his arm till he screams. “I’m his partner,” she says flatly.

“Oh, I, um, of course!” he stammers, and she almost feels sorry for him. “I, um, room 503 — it’s just down there…” He is still babbling when she stalks away. Ordinarily, Joan enjoys making racists blanch as they revise their assumptions. This time, the satisfaction barely registers. 

To her, of course, hospitals are not unnatural or unfamiliar places. She understands their protocols, their scents, their routines. As she stands at the foot of Sherlock’s bed, she reminds herself of these things. She can recite the procedures that have brought him here. She can easily reassure herself as to his vital signs by checking the machines, the charts. She is still lightheaded with fear. 

Mercifully, he is not sedated. He sleeps exhausted, his mouth slightly open, his breaths accompanied by the soft hiss of pumped oxygen. Joan sits down in the chair by the bed, and almost immediately rises again. She decides on getting a cup of coffee.

She stands in front of the vending machine with her arms tightly crossed, watching the slightly viscous liquid fill the cup as if mesmerized.

“Joan?”

She gives an involuntary start. “Carrie.” She should smile; she should do _something_. “It’s good to see you.” Her voice sounds dazed and distant in her own ears.

“I…” Carrie bites off whatever she was going to say. “You’re not here on a case, are you? You’re here with someone.”

Joan swallows. The vending machine whirrs to a stop. “Yeah,” she says, “I’m here with someone.”

“Is… is your mom…”

“Oh no,” says Joan, “she’s fine.” She swallows again. If she picked up the coffee cup now, she thinks, she could not help but crush it, and scald herself, and that would be some kind of relief. “It’s, um, my partner.”

“Oh my god. Do you… do you need anything?” Joan finds herself grateful that the other woman has not greeted the news with her professional façade, but with open concern, the kind of distress she cannot, will not allow herself to show. Carrie puts a hand on her arm. “Do you want a cup of real coffee?”

“That’s — no, thanks. It’s sweet of you. I’m fine.” That is, of course, the kind of obvious lie one always tells. Usually she doesn’t need to lie. Usually Sherlock won’t let her.

“How long have you guys been together?”

Oddly enough, Joan thinks, it is helpful to affirm this, to anchor herself somewhere where she has to dissemble, make polite conversation. “Almost six years now,” she says. “You’ve met him, as a matter of fact.”

It takes a moment, and then Carrie’s jaw actually drops. “That — oh — I — I didn’t realize…”

“He’s less of an asshole now.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“Oh, I did,” Joan assures her, “and he was.” _He and I know each other far too well, and still surprise each other. He thinks nothing of taking over the entire kitchen for a scientific experiment, and he knows I’m getting sick before I do. He loves Beethoven. He’s squeamish about sushi and eats fermented shark meat. He still takes tea instead of coffee and he’d never heard the Sting song before I played it for him. He is possessive; he tries not to be. He is fearless and fragile and arrogant and kind and I love him._

“We own a tortoise who likes death metal,” says Joan.

It is the sudden, softening compassion in Carrie’s face that tells Joan her statement has been diagnosed (probably correctly) as a symptom of shock. “I’m sure he’ll be back with you and the tortoise in no time,” says her former colleague.

Joan presses her lips together, picks up the cooling cup of coffee. “Yeah,” she says, “thanks.”

***

Someone passing the room might presume he was still asleep; she knows better. He has not moved, nor has he opened his eyes. But on his far side, his right hand fidgets in an uneven rhythm: dit-dah-dah, dit-dah, dah, dit dit dit, dah dah dah… _Oh, Sherlock._

Joan clears her throat and rounds the doorway as he taps out the _N._. “I’m here.”

“Watson.” His voice is ruined, his throat ravaged by smoke. He tries in vain to suppress a coughing fit.

“You haven’t been answering my messages.” She finds herself wondering irrelevantly why all hospital water pitchers are the same hideous shade of mauve.

“Turned my phone off.” He accepts the glass of water without protest, and she returns to sit in the chair, holding its armrests too tightly.

“I presumed you’d checked yourself in for smoke inhalation.”

“That’s… why they’re keeping me. I think.”

“You think.” She looks down at the filmy surface of her coffee. “Were you going to tell me? Before you set fire to our house and sent yourself to hospital — were you going to tell me?” She can hear her voice go higher, harder. “I’m your partner, Sherlock, or have you once again conveniently forgotten that? Did you decide it was better for me not to know? Did you decide _on my behalf_ that I should give you up as a lost cause? Tell me.”

He ducks his head to one side — a nervous, twitching motion. “I do not believe I am guilty of an exclusion so deliberate,” he says at last. “Nor,” he adds, with a shade of his customary self-mockery, “can I claim any thought process so lucid.” At that, she can feel her anger begin to drain, leaving her chilled.

“Ms. Hudson told me to give you her love. Or a Homeric insult.”

He nods his understanding. “The coward is so shaky he cannot control himself.” Joan watches him swallow. “He fidgets first on one foot, then the other. His teeth chatter; his heart inside him pounds against his ribs at shapes of death foreseen.”

“Don’t,” she says swiftly, violating every medical protocol she’s ever learned. “Don’t do that.”

“Book 13 of the _Iliad_ ,” he returns, half-sullenly. His fingers beat out a patternless tattoo against the bed. “I’ve been… seeing things.” He gestures with his left hand, as though illustrating the connection between two ideas. “Hallucinating.”

“Oh.” It barely emerges as a sound. There does not seem to be enough air in the room.

“I have always known,” he continues earnestly, “who you are. And what we are to each other.”

“Sherlock…”

“My dear Watson,” he says hoarsely, “I owe you a thousand apologies.”

Joan blinks away a stinging behind her eyes. “Well,” she says, “at least thirteen.”

He does not smile, but he dares to meet her eyes steadily for the first time. In his she reads wild hope, as well as fear, and the fist around her heart tightens further. Joan sighs, and gets to her feet.

“At least,” says Sherlock suddenly, and begins to cough again. “At least let me hear from you.”

“Don’t be stupid,” says Joan; “I’m not leaving.” She sets her coffee down on the wheeled table. Lowering the bed’s side rail requires a firm hand and long practice; that done, she sits down on the edge of the mattress. And then, she takes her partner’s hand.

He stares down at their interlinked fingers. “What are you doing, Watson?”

“Science. Studies have shown,” she says, “that it reduces blood pressure and improves stress responses. It even helps to relieve pain.”

“I’m not…”

“Don’t lie to me, Sherlock.” He sighs, but his hand grasps hers more firmly, then relaxes. She feels her own breathing settle into a more regular rhythm. “You okay?”

“Mm.” Again a pressure of her hand. “I will be.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

He wriggles sideways to look up at her; she meets his eyes, wide and serious. “I always keep my promises to you, Watson.”

Joan swallows hard. Looking at her partner, she finds she does not have to force her smile. “That’s true,” she says; “you do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There seems to be a variety of opinion on what Ms. Hudson's first name might be; I have stuck with Martha because it is derived from ancient Greek, where it both means 'mistress' and alludes to an archetypical housekeeper. I couldn't resist the multilayered pun.
> 
> Nor could I resist the _Jane Eyre_ epigraph, because if the writers are going to go there, then I am too.
> 
> The only reason I relocated Carrie to this new hospital is that I wanted her there. In the show's tradition, I invented a new NYC hospital; St. Stephen is a patron saint of headaches (having died from having stones thrown at his.)
> 
> I did my research on HIPAA: https://www.aclu.org/other/faq-access-patient-information-friends-and-family
> 
> On quietness in hospital environments: http://www.mghpcs.org/eed_portal/Documents/PatExp/ADDRESSING-QUIETNESS.pdf
> 
> Memory loss and fatigue can be symptoms of about a million different things, apparently; hallucinations narrow the field of possible diagnoses disturbingly. 
> 
> The translation of the Homeric insult is basically Fitzgerald's, slightly adapted by me for clarity in this context.
> 
> There is a growing body of research on why holding hands is good for you, see e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29091537, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08964280309596065, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17201784, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03627-7. And Joan would keep up on her medical reading. So, yes: hand-holding for SCIENCE.


End file.
